WP7 developers complain of missing payments, broken reporting tools

Microsoft is making good progress in its efforts to woo developers to the new Windows Phone 7 platform, but we hope the company is equally devoted to keeping devs on board once they arrive. As the Redmond giant struggles to become a leader once again in the mobile space, developers and the apps they build are integral to Microsoft’s success. But in a blog post last week, developer Nicholas Yu made some troubling comments. Yu found that the number one feature users are requesting of his app — a Google Voice client called GoVoice — is the addition of push notification support. Yu notes in his blog post, however, that he is hesitant to add the functionality.

According to Yu, Microsoft’s analytics and reporting functions do not work so he has no idea how many copies of GoVoice have been sold. More importantly, Yu says that he has not yet been paid by Microsoft and he’s not sure when his first check is coming. Since maintaining a push server has associated costs, Yu cannot justify the expense because he has no idea if his app is making money or not. In other words, problems with Microsoft’s developer program are preventing Yu from improving his app and meeting the demands of Windows Phone 7 users.

And it’s not just Yu. Justin James is another developer who recently voiced similar complaints. James wrote a lengthy post about his negative experience with the Windows Phone 7 developer program. He even claims Microsoft told him there will be no developer payouts until February, 2011.

As we’ve stated before, Microsoft needs to do everything in its power to attract new Windows Phone 7 developers and encourage them to bring the best possible experiences to their apps. By allegedly not providing reporting tools and not paying its developer partners in a timely fashion, Microsoft appears to be doing just the opposite.

You are kidding correct? There is absolutely no way that a product or service from Microsoft is flawed with gaping holes.What, next you are going to tell me that Microsoft is the company behind ActiveX right?

http://rmbo47.myopenid.com/ rmbo47

I guess they failed to copy Apple closely enough on this.

Anonymous

Yep. Android, through Schmidt’s espionage while sitting on Apple’s board knew just how to do it. Make the UI as iPhone like as possible while adding bits and pieces to make it look like you were doing something like but not EXACTLY alike.

Wait…. so a rushed product is crap? It took Apple years to get the dev situation right, remember web apps built for iPhone?

Anonymous

Wrong… they put web apps in place UNTIL they got the dev situation right, INSTEAD of having a true dev community without the tools in place to support them. Web apps were in place for 1 year and then the true dev platform and distribution was ready to go. That’s totally different from MS where they attempted to have a dev infrastructure out the gate but were clearly unprepared for it. Apple chose to wait despite the criticism of the tech community because they knew they weren’t ready yet.

Anonymous

Thats what I’m saying, apple did it the right way. I’m saying REMEMBER, apple needed time to get it right! They did a great job of having the web apps be a stop gap until everything was ready.

Tande04

Last I check Apple still doesn’t have it right.

You hear the same complaints about missing checks and creative accounting from iOS devs.

Michale11111

That’s what you get for involving yourself with Windows Mobile anything!

Keri

Microsoft deliberately withholds information about how many apps are being sold, for the same reason it keeps the press in the dark about how many Windows Phone 7 handsets are being sold.

It would be an embarrassment.

Both handset and app sales are so low that it would reveal Windows Phone 7 to be a market failure.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Brian-Hogg/509308256 Brian Hogg

You forgot to write “I think” at the beginning of each of those paragraphs.

Diego!

@Brian LOL! hahahaa, nice one! :)

justin

disturbing news this is *yoda voice*

i told u so.com

i know right and those numbers are Pennsylvannia numbers too lol….funny though Palm didnt have a bad launch at all, infact they broke records and still sold 100k phones the first weekend and over 3 million total yet they seem to be pitted as a failure too hmmmm. I guess everyone is a failure if their not Apple, or Android huh. Cuz when the nexus one was a flop, nobody said anything about that, they just kept their mouths shut.

Kaz23

Windows Phone 7 = A Bag Of Pain

App developers have now had their fingers burned from Windows Phone 7.

It follows that users of Windows Phone 7 handsets will also get their fingers burned, from low app sales, low handset sales, and the risk of the platform ending up in the graveyard with Windows Mobile and Microsoft’s Kin phones.

Dano

What surprised me is how little Mr. Yu seems to know about the development community.
1) MS has said since first opening the app store that payments would be made quarterly and that January 2011, 3 months after the phone was released, is when you will see the first royalty checks.
2) If GoVoice finds usage data so critical, perhaps it would be wise to add the few lines of code it would to track exact usage data. Since GoVoice heavily uses cloud services, I am surprised it isn’t there already.

Anonymous

Zach seems to do piss poor research on his “articles”. As you have pointed out Yu seems to not understand how the MS distro channels work. And then Zach finds some other guy who also doesn’t get the system’s finer points and suddenly this Apple iDiot has a competitor bashing “article” to run with.

The spin coming from BGR is making me nauseous. Please stick with real stories from multiple sources not this prefabricated Apple loving garbage.

Now if you did any real journalism, Zach, you would have checked with a variety of WP7 developers and seen if this was a common “problem”. And then maybe it is a communications misunderstanding between devs and MS instead of the imminent downfall of a alternative to your Holy iOs.

Veritr

The main issue here is that the number of app sales is hidden.

Did Microsoft pre-announce that it won’t allow anyone to see how many apps they have sold? No.

Microsoft is hiding this information, as it would reveal a failure to the world that Windows Phone 7 has failed as a platform. It is the same reason why Microsoft refuses to reveal sales numbers for Windows Phone 7.

Microsoft happily released sales figures for Kinect. Why hide those figures for Windows Phone 7? Again, to hide from the world that the platform has failed.

Thanks BGR for good reporting, as nobody has reported this important issue before.

Anonymous

Hey, WP7 can’t even get entire words on a single screen (see above), or use font capitalization consistently (ditto) – so why should this news come as a surprise?